SONIC DESIGN - PROJECT 1 / AUDITORY IMAGING

20 /05/2025 - 03/06/2025 (Week 5 - Week 7)

Thanaphorn Daensaad / 0350930

Sonic Design / Bachelor of Design (Hons) in Creative Media

Project 1 / Auditory Imaging

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List

Lectures

Instructions

Project 1: Auditory Imaging

Feedback

Reflection

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Lecture

Week 6

Multitrack Layering

Key thing:

Label & Track Color

Each individual track should not clip (too loud)

    - Decrease dB

    - Apply hard limiter

      [Input boost - used when the track is too soft]

    - Go to mixer > apply hard limiter 

      [Only if the the overall level is still clipping]

. Grouping - Easier to manage

    - Multitrack > Tracks > Add Stereo Bus Track (has its own volume control)

    - Make sure the tracks are mixed and good to go 

    - Name the bus track (eg. aeroplane)

    - Mix > Bus > Aeroplane

5. Master Mix in Mixer should be 0

6. Export with 48000 Hz, 16 bits as WAVE

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Instruction

Module Information Booklet

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Project 1
For this project, we are required to create an audio image using the combination scenarios given in the MIB. The audio should be in first-person point of view to visualize on what's happening with just the audio tracks. Voice or dialogs are not allowed.

The given choice scenarios are:

1. Wildlife + Background

2. Everyday Home Life + Background

3. Cities + Transport + Exterior Atmosphere

4. Industry and Electronic sounds + Background

5. Weather + Background

6. Market + Rural atmosphere + Background

Choice of scenario: Wildlife + Background

Story Planning - Ocean Exploration

I chose wildlife and background and focus on making a ocean life exploration theme. I created a storyline below focusing on mostly capturing the realism of ocean world.

Story Idea with highlighted scenes planning

After creating the storyline. I went to find all the sounds needed on various websites like Freesound.org, Pixabay.com and more. Most of the sounds I needed couldn't be found on Freesound.org so I tried manipulating some of the sounds to make it sound like the sound I wanted. I started on my first scene which consists of the boat sounds and sea ambience with some seagulls squawking.

First scene - Boat + Sea Ambience

Most of the pitch shifting effect is added to make the sound more muffled to imply that the diver has the suit on. Therefore, the sound would be less clear so I lowered the treble.

Pitch Shifting

Since my audio was long and the parts were separated by a long post, I used the stretching method we learnt. Stretching the clip allows me to make the clip shorter while adding a few adjustment to maintain the original pitch of the audio. 

Stretch & Pitch

I used the cutting method of a long audio to separate them to allow possible layering and avoid myself from reusing the same audio per scene.

Cutting Audios

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1QcK7IsIYCiqmRgitBNv2e3sWPbRPD-PX?usp=sharing

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Feedback

Week 7 

Make the boat scene more like it's on the boat. Maybe add the floor creaking. Add audios that supports the scene.

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Reflection

Initally, I thought this project would be quick and easy. Though sometimes, I regret choosing the theme I chose as it was quite challenging to replicate the sound of nature while also not overexaggerating it. So, I came out with the idea of an underwater exploration. The hardest part of it all was to find the animal sounds as most of the ones I found were either low quality or had some background sounds in it which could ruin the clarity of the final outcome. Most of the time were used in finding the audios and making them sound the way I wanted them to.